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Yesterday morning I went along to Stoke for stage 3 of the 2011 Tour of Britain and this is a small selection of the snaps I took whilst there.

It was a great day and the atmosphere was awesome. I must also say that the team village at the depart was in a fantastic location compared to last year. This year it was situated in the beautifully green and picturesque Trentham gardens so big shouts to the organizers for picking out such a great spot for the teams and spectators alike.

It’s taken me an age to get my head around this movie lark and that coupled with a dying mac has had me in bits of late, but in between panic and a lot of hand gestures and shouting I managed to squeeze this quick edit out. I hope you like it, and especially my Birmingham peoples!

Shot during the Midlands Rollapaluza heats in Birmingham, April 2011.

At the end of the night Tom Gillespie won in fine style, beating his opponent Marcus by 3 seconds over 1000m.

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Adding the final touches to a Flying Scot frame before painting. Behind the doors of the glittering front of their Murray Street shop, Rattray’s framebuilders worked their magic in these dark atmospheric surroundings.

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Ever since university I have been a fan of Cartier-Bresson’s work. Only the other day I was speaking with my partner about my seldom used Moleskine notepad… The only words it contains from my time in higer learning, among illegible ramblings are “Look at works by Henri Cartier-Bresson”. Aah, bless.

René de Latour wrote:Generally in a race of the Barrachi type, the changes are very rapid, with stints of no more than 300 yards. Altig was at the front when I started the check – and he was still there a minute later. Something must be wrong. Altig wasn’t even swinging aside to invite Anquetil through… Suddenly, on a flat road, Anquetil lost contact and a gap of three lengths appeared between the two partners. There followed one of the most sensational things I have ever seen in any form of cycle racing during my 35 years’ association with the sport – something which I consider as great a physical performance as a world hour record or a classic road race win. Altig was riding at 30mph at the front – and had been doing so for 15 minutes. When Anquetil lost contact, he had to ease the pace, wait for his partner to go by, push him powerfully in the back, sprint to the front again after losing 10 yards in the process, and again settle down to a 30mph stint at the front. Altig did not this just once but dozens of times.

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What a brilliant gallery. Historische Bildergalerie des Bahnradsports has an absolute sack full of vintage track cycling scans from the early 1900s up until the early sixties and they are all great. If only I could read German!

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What an awesome event! Many thanks to Fin for organizing this, a great night was had by all. There is movie footage here, too for those that want to see mine and Andy’s photo finish! More photos up later this week.